A Thousand Morons: The Movie Version

It’s not very often that an Open Letter book is turned into a movie (in fact, aside from Duras’s The Sailor from Gibraltar and Ilf & Petrov’s The Golden Calf [which was actually made into three different movies] I don’t think any of our titles have become films), so it’s really exciting to find out about about this version of Quim Monzo’s A Thousand Morons (coming out in fall 2012):

There’s no IMDB listing for this movie, but it was part of the Seattle International Film Festival, which described it as such:

Dropped forks, high rise plunges, overzealous donators, and a fiercely liberated Virgin Mary are just a few of the subjects covered in director Ventura Pons’ masterfully random, occasionally interlocking collection of fifteen vignettes, delivered at a rapid-fire, pin-wheeling pace. Split into three parts and featuring a gaggle of Spanish stars, the film first delivers a variously blistering and tender take on modern foibles and breaches of etiquette, before moving on to a bawdy reexamination of classic myths and parables, all rendered in a delightfully chintzy silent film fashion. The final section, concerning a screenwriter’s exasperated relationship with his headstrong parents, finishes things off in fine form, with one last caustic sting in the tail. Moving with breathtaking assurance, SIFF favorite Pons (Life on the Edge, Forasters, Drifting) quick draws between savage black comedy and unexpected pathos to deliver an exhilarating and dazzlingly modulated ride. Everyone who sees it will have a different favorite part.

I don’t know exactly how this works, but hopefully someone will pick this up and distribute it across the U.S. . . . and maybe even here in Rochester. I’d love to see how Monzo’s wacky stories and viewpoint is converted to the screen.